Paradoxical records are usually the best ones – because they are more interesting than their all too obvious counterparts. Such paradoxical pieces of music are interesting due to their internal tensions or even contradictions, and the listener cannot exactly put the finger on what might be slightly odd about the tunes pouring out of the speakers. "The Lights are violent here", the debut album of the Tampere-based 5-piece Rain Diary is such a paradoxical record – and that makes it a win in both the short and the long run.

Summer has finally hit the Finnish capital. And it has hit it hard. With temperatures of about 30 degrees, the prospect of heading to a newly established lounge restaurant in downtown Helsinki on a Friday night is already a good one as such. If you then, on top of that, even get to see a renowned band for free (and quite exclusively, semi-unplugged), then the anticipation knows no limits anymore.

Well, if truth be told, "renowned" might be an unsuitable term for Rain Diary at this point. Even though their excellent debut album "The Lights are violent here" has been out for about 9 months (followed by a later release on the German market in April this year), the big promotion effect has not kicked in yet. The wave of Rain Diary has not visibly grown so far. Despite one booked Germany-gig as a support act of Iconcrash-main man Jaani Peuhu (who also handled production duties for Rain Diary), the band is overall rather conducting a "policy of small steps". One step at a time, continuous growth. And that night, the step was to play an exclusive semi-unplugged show. Which, for a band toying heavily with Electronic sounds on the record, is not the most obvious choice to begin with.

Oooops. What did we find in the archives while preparing for our new layout? The festival report from 2012's annual Tuska Open Air. Now we feel highly embarrassed, especially considering that THIS year's Tuska is just around the corner. The billing and all necessary information you find here.

With 8 days until Tuska 2014 enjoy this tid-bit while we bury our heads in the sand...